How To Wire The Zero Delay LED USB Encoder

How To Wire The Zero Delay LED USB Encoder

The EG Starts encoder board is an USB video game control encoder board is usually available on Amazon.com for a very cheap price.

It is perfect for building an arcade cabinet or custom “old school” controller. You can plug it into a PC, a Linux machine, a Raspberry PI, probably even into one of those fancy Mac’s.

It is also very confusing & there is not much documentation online about it. I will show you how to wire it the proper way. I will also explain what the MODE, CLEAR, TURBO & AUTO buttons are for.

Important information about the board:

  • Supports 12 buttons (can’t remap the special buttons).
  • Supports 1 joystick (mechanical, not analog)
  • 3x 5V power connectors for LED’s
  • 2 modes (digital / analog style)
  • Buttons 9 & 10 don’t have to be used for SEL & START.
  • Some boards have a USB header plug instead of a “B” plug.

Wiring the buttons.

Zero delay LED USB encoder board diagram
EG Starts encoder board pin-out

The joysticks can be used on the 5 pin connectors or the (4) 2 pin connectors, but they are linked (meaning if you wire 2 sticks up, they will function as the same stick). The buttons hook up in between the black & yellow wires (no polarity). There is an optional LED connector also, if you use it; wire the red wire to the LED+ & the black wire to the LED- on your button. The LED is constantly lit. Wire buttons (optional) to the special buttons if you want them. Wire any extra LED’s to the external power connectors.

Note: you might need a resistor for your LED, check your LED’s specs.

Alternate wiring.

Use this trick to light the button only when it is pressed. You will need to carefully pull the yellow & black wires out of the housing & switch them. This will not work on the ribbon cables.

Zero delay alternate wiring for momentary button lighting.
EG Starts encoder board alt wiring

Mapping the board to your emulator.

This board shows up as a standard game pad, so you will need to do some remapping in your emulator to get it to work properly. I’ll show you how I mapped mine.

Arcade control panel button mapping
Typical arcade panel layout.

There is a lot of trial & error to get things to work like you want them to. 

What do the “special” buttons do?

MODE:

Switches between digital or analog style. This just changes the way the controller appears to the computer. In analog mode (default) the computer uses the analog stick, in digital it uses the D-pad inputs. This does not make the controller true analog, it just changes the part of the controller that is mapped.

TURBO:

Hold the turbo button then press any of the 1-12 buttons to set that button that turbo, causing it for fire multiple times while you hold the button down.

AUTO:

Similar to turbo, but causes the button to fire nonstop, as in all the time. Pretty annoying.

CLEAR: 

Hold the clear button then press any of the 1-12 buttons to stop the turbo or auto modes on them.

Here is my mini-MAME Console cabinet.

mini-MAME arcade console cabinet

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